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<li><a href="#searx">Searx</a></li>
<li><a href="#installing-searx-on-arch-linux">Installing Searx on Arch Linux</a></li>
<li><a href="#docker-installation">Docker installation</a></li>
<li><a href="#qutebrowser-setup">Qutebrowser setup</a></li>
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<h1><a href="https://sagrista.info/blog/2021/searx-or-duckduckgo/">Searx: moving away from DuckDuckGo</a></h1>
<p>The metasearch engine open source project Searx might be what you are looking for in terms of private web search</p>
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<time class="published" datetime="2021-11-04">
November 4, 2021</time>
<p>3 minute read</p>
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<p>I have been using DuckDuckGo as my search engine of choice for the last few years. Howerver, DuckDuckGo seems to have <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/degoogle/comments/pwf7q0/twitter_censors_email_correspondence_that_appears/hegyiik/">a few problems</a>:</p>
<ol>
<li>It is based in the US, arguably not the most privacy-respecting jurisdiction in the world.</li>
<li>Only part of their source code is open.</li>
<li>Uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a cloud provider and Cloudfare CDS.</li>
<li>It looks like <a href="https://www.techworm.net/2020/07/duckduckgo-browser-track-website.html">their browser was caught tracking visited websites per user</a>.</li>
<li>At the end of the day, you can’t really know that they are telling the truth when they promise not to track you.</li>
</ol>
<p>In this post, I’m discussing Searx, a better alternative to DuckDuckGo that is truly open and driven by the community.</p>
<h2 id="searx">Searx</h2>
<p>Searx is a metasearch engine that aggregates results from multiple 
sources and eliminates the tracking. It can be used over the Tor network
 to also provide search anonymity. Anyone can install and deploy their 
own Searx instance, either for private use or for everyone to use as a 
contribution to the community. The user interface is modern and can be 
customized to a degree. For instance, it provides a couple of UI themes 
and dark mode is available for both.</p>
<p>Since you can inspect the project’s whole <a href="https://github.com/searx/searx">source code</a>,
 you can be reasonably sure that tracking does not indeed happen, even 
though every instance could in principle modify it without notifying its
 users. In any case, there are many instances to choose from, and if you
 do not trust anyone, you can just deploy your own for your private 
local use. This <a href="https://searx.github.io/searx/user/own-instance.html">section of their documentation</a> contains an interesting discussion of private vs public instance usage.</p>
<h2 id="installing-searx-on-arch-linux">Installing Searx on Arch Linux</h2>
<p>Installing your own private instance in Arch Linux is as easy as installing the <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/searx/"><code>searx</code></a> AUR package. Then, start it by running the systemd service:</p>
<pre tabindex="0"><code>systemctl start uwsgi@searx.service
</code></pre><p>If you want to start the service every time at startup, enable it:</p>
<pre tabindex="0"><code>systemctl enable uwsgi@searx.service
</code></pre><p>Then, point your browser to <a href="http://localhost:8888/">localhost:8888</a> and you should get the default Searx landing page running on your machine:</p>
<figure class="fig-center"><a href="https://sagrista.info/img/2021/11/local-searx-instance.jpg"><img src="Searx%20moving%20away%20from%20DuckDuckGo_files/local-searx-instance.jpg" loading="lazy" width="60%"></a><figcaption style="margin:0 auto;width:60%">
<h4>The default Searx interface as running on my laptop after a fresh install.</h4>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Edit the file <code>/etc/searx/settings.yml</code> for some configuration options.</p>
<h2 id="docker-installation">Docker installation</h2>
<p>Searx can also be installed on the isolated environment of a Docker container using the <a href="https://hub.docker.com/r/searx/searx">searx/searx image</a>. You can find a full guide on how to do that <a href="https://searx.github.io/searx/admin/installation-docker.html">here</a>.</p>
<h2 id="qutebrowser-setup">Qutebrowser setup</h2>
<p>You can set up qutebrowser to use your newly installed private Searx instance by replacing the <code>DEFAULT</code> search engine in the <code>config.py</code> configuration file:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" style="color:#f8f8f2;background-color:#272822;-moz-tab-size:4;-o-tab-size:4;tab-size:4"><code class="language-Python" data-lang="Python">c<span style="color:#f92672">.</span>url<span style="color:#f92672">.</span>searchengines <span style="color:#f92672">=</span> {<span style="color:#e6db74">'DEFAULT'</span>: <span style="color:#e6db74">'http://localhost:8888?q=</span><span style="color:#e6db74">{}</span><span style="color:#e6db74">'</span>}
</code></pre></div><p>If all of this is too much for you, and you are 
fine trusting someone else, just replace the URL with one of the public 
instances.</p>
<h2 id="final-remarks">Final remarks</h2>
<p>I myself use the private local installation in all my computers 
listed above. I’m almost always connected to a VPN via wireguard, which 
adds a slight anonymity layer (not even very good, but it’s there 
anyways) by hiding my true location and routing all traffic via an 
encrypted tunnel. In my phone, I just trust <a href="https://searx.be/">searx.be</a>, which is currently the top listed instance in the <a href="https://searx.space/#help-country">Searx instance list</a> page.</p>
<p>All in all, Searx is an awesome project that offers a true private 
search engine that is, in my opinion, superior to anything else. You do 
not need to trust third parties to keep you private and not track your 
every move, which is awesome. Installing a local instance is easy-peasy,
 but you can also use one of the publicly available instances if you 
prefer to.</p>
<p>Some Searx resources:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://searx.space/">Public instance list</a></li>
<li><a href="https://searx.github.io/searx/">Official documentation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/searx/searx">Source repository at Github</a></li>
</ul>
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